Construing the world: conceptual metaphors and event-construal in news stories potx

6 Construing the world: conceptual metaphors and event-construal in news stories Monika A. Bednarek, Augsburg (Monika.Bednarek@phil.uni-augsburg.de) Abstract This paper is concerned with conceptual metaphors and event-construal in newspaper language. Event-construal is defined as „the way in which a particular event in the ‚real- world‛ is construed via textualisation“. The paper takes up the notion of metaphors as creative stylistic devices in news stories (analysing stories in The Sun, The Guardian and The New York Times) and shows how tapping into conceptual metaphors helps to establish ‚event- construals‛ in texts. This, in turn, it is argued, has many functions, including the most central ones of evaluation and dramatisation. Analysing news stories about different ‚newsworthy‛ events, the paper demonstrates how the choice of a particular event-construal crucially depends on the emotional potential of reported statements. It is proposed that (although there is a lot of interaction between verbal and non-verbal signs which co-establish such construals), conceptual metaphors are particularly important for strategically building up event-construals. These event-construals themselves, it is suggested, are important cognitive devices that help the reader to create coherence. In diesem Beitrag geht es um konzeptuelle Metaphern und sogenannte event-construals in der Zeitungssprache. (Event-construal wird definiert als die Art und Weise, wie Ereignisse in der außersprachlichen Welt durch Textualisierung konstruiert werden.) Metaphern werden hier als kreative stilistische Mittel verstanden und analysiert; es soll gezeigt werden, wie durch den Rückgriff auf konzeputelle Metaphern bestimmte event-construals in Texten etabliert werden. Dies, so wird argumentiert, hat seinerseits viele Funktionen, darunter vor allem die Bewertung und Dramatisierung von Ereignissen. Durch die Analyse von verschiedenen Zeitungsartikeln in The Sun, The Guardian und The New York Times wird gezeigt, dass die Wahl eines bestimmten event-construals vom emotionalen Potential der zitierten Aussagen abhängt. Es wird vorgeschlagen, dass (trotz der hohen Interaktion zwischen sprachlichen und nicht-sprachlichen Zeichen, die solche construals zusammen etablieren), konzeptuelle Metaphern besonders wichtig für den strategischen Aufbau von event-construals sind. Die event-construals selbst können als wichtige kognitive Mittel dienen, welche dem Leser/der Leserin helfen, Kohärenz zu erzeugen. 1. Introduction At the heart of studies on metaphor we can find two central questions: ‚What are metaphors?‛ and ‚What are metaphors for?‛ (Ortony 1993b: 15). It is the latter question that will be addressed in this paper, which discusses the text-linguistic function of metaphors in news stories. I shall argue that metaphors are crucial devices for establishing particular construals of ‚newsworthy‛ events in news reports (in interplay with other textual and semiotic devices). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 7 Traditionally, metaphors were the exclusive domain of rhetoric, analysed alongside other tropes as imaginative, poetic, ornamental devices. Typically, the term metaphor was thus used to refer to the unexpected use of language in literature (e.g. Shakespeare’s Life’s but a walking shadow), whereas conventional, familiarised metaphors (e.g. a dull sound) were defined as ‚dead‛, because the original semantic contradictions of such metaphors are not recognised as such by speakers. In more recent years, however, cognitive linguists have shown that these conventionalised metaphors play a large role in language. 1 Thus, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have used conventional metaphors to argue that much of our everyday talk (and, hence, as they claim, much of our thought, and much of our reality) is structured metaphorically.2 This means that most of our abstract categories are organised cognitively by structures borrowed from more concrete categories. In cognitive linguistics (CL), conceptual metaphors are thus defined as „a mapping of the structure of a source model onto a target model“ (Ungerer / Schmid 1996: 120). These mappings are realised linguistically. For instance, the conceptual metaphor time is money is reflected in the linguistic expressions You’re wasting my time, This gadget will save you hours, Is that worth your while, He’s living on borrowed time etc. (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 7-8). According to Lakoff / Johnson, there are three different types of conceptual metaphors: (1) structural metaphors refer to the organisation of one concept in terms of another (e.g. time is money), (2) orientational metaphors are concerned with the (mostly spatial) organisation of a whole range of concepts (e.g. HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN) and (3) ontological metaphors relate to „ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and substances“ (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 25) (e.g. INFLATION IS AN ENTITY). 3 In this paper I shall focus on structural metaphors, however. 1 For a background to contemporary theories of metaphor from Aristotle onwards see Steinhart and Kittay (1994). For a variety of studies on metaphor from philosophical, linguistic, psychological and educational point of views see Ortony (1993a). 2 The claim that it is not only language but our thought/reality that is structured metaphorically is a disputable one and relates to the much-discussed Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativism. However, I do not want to go into a lengthy discussion of this subject, because I think that the concept of conceptual metaphor proves useful even if this claim is not accepted. 3 The notion of conceptual metaphor hence comprises both types of metaphor (the imaginative and the ‚dead‛ type), because both can express the same structural metaphor. Thus, the metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS is realised both by the conventionalised expression He has constructed a theory and by the imaginative expression His theory has thousands of little rooms and long, winding corridors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 53; see also Lakoff and Turner 1989 for an analysis of conceptual metaphors in poetry along this line). Let me point out that I am not interested in this paper in the degree of conventionalisation or ‚figurativeness‛ of the linguistic metaphors discussed, but assume that there is a cline of conventionalisation involved, which may differ from speaker to speaker. metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 8 It appears that most research on conceptual metaphors focuses on finding out more about the existence of particular conceptual metaphors (i.e. typical target and source models and their linguistic realisations) as well as their influence on human thought (e.g. Lakoff / Johnson 1980; Reddy 1993; Kövecses 1990). This kind of research examines the metaphorical conceptualisation of cognition. 4 In contrast to this, the text-linguistic approach adopted in this paper takes up the notion of metaphors as creative stylistic devices in news stories (analysing stories in The Sun, The Guardian and The New York Times, taken from the newspapers’ web pages) and shows how tapping into conceptual metaphors helps to establish what will be called ‚event-construals‛ in texts. This, in turn, has many functions, including the most central ones of evaluation and dramatisation. As such, the approach adopted here has some aspects in common with Lenk (2002) and Lakoff / Turner (1989) (who focus on the metaphorical style of literary texts) as well as with Lakoff (1992), while differing from these studies in broadening the focus to an examination of the interaction of linguistic means to establish event-construals. 2. Event-construals in texts In the following sections I intend to show the important role of tapping into conceptual metaphors and employing other linguistic and semiotic devices to construe events, to establish ‚event-construals‛ in news stories. This term derives from research within cognitive linguistics (CL), where the human capacity to „mentally ‚construe‛ a situation in alternative ways“ (Taylor 2002: 11) is regarded as one of the basic cognitive capacities with which CL is concerned. Thus we can employ different figure-ground organisation, different degrees of explicitness and inexplicitness, detail, agentivity, perspective, generality, and specificity in imagining and describing a situation. Language plays an important part in this, since different linguistic expressions establish different construals. One of the best-known examples for this are the differences between active and passive, tense and aspect, converse verbs, or semantically-related lexical items. For example, the difference between shore and coast is that „while the SHORE is the boundary between land and water from the water’s point of view, 4 Sometimes such research is accused of relying solely on intuition and decontextualised examples. However, there is a growing body of research based on actual usage or dictionary information (e.g. the METALUDE database accessible at http://www.ln.edu.hk/lle/cwd/project01/web/introduction.html). Other linguistic research is interested in using conceptual metaphors in TESL, the problem of metaphors in translation, and corpus evidence for conceptual metaphors (see e.g. research mentioned on the University of Birmingham’s Metaphor UK web-page (http://www.eisu.bham.ac.uk/muk/). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 9 the COAST is the boundary between land and water from the land’s point of view“ (Fillmore 1982: 121). Similarly, to be in the bus implies that the bus is not in service, to be on the bus means that it is (cf. Fillmore 1985: 235).5 The difference between nouns and verbs also provides a certain construal of an event. Compare: (1) a. Wheeler fell of the cliff. b. Keegan entered the room. (2) a. Wheeler’s fall from the cliff. b. Keegan’s entrance into the room. (Saeed 1997: 331) As Saeed (1997: 331) has pointed out, in the first pair of these sentences, the event is seen as a sequence of sub-events, whereas in the second pair, it is seen as a complete unit.6 Many more examples could be cited, but I hope it is sufficiently clear by now in which way construals may be brought about by language. The term event-construal is derived from this usage and refers to the way in which a particular event in the ‚real-world‛ is construed via textualisation when it is reported in a newspaper. 7 2.1. Evaluation and dramatisation Before the empirical analysis of the news stories below, two further concepts must be introduced briefly: evaluation and dramatisation. Evaluation is here defined as the expression of speaker/writer opinion, and involves the evaluation of aspects of the world on the part of the speaker/writer e.g. as more or less positive/negative, important/unimportant, expected/unexpected, comprehensible/incomprehensible, possible/impossible, serious/funny, genuine/fake etc (alternative terms used in the literature on evaluation are stance and appraisal). Dramatisation, on the other hand, is simply concerned with ‚making things more dramatic‛, i.e. making aspects of the world appear more excited, impressive, and sensational 5 Cf. Fillmore (1985) for more examples of this kind. 6 Langacker calls this scanning (cf. Langacker 1987: 102). 7 This is one of several possible textualisations of the pre-textual ideational event. For observations on textualisations of the pre-textual ideational see Coulthard (1994). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 10 than they perhaps are. There is thus a close connection between dramatisation and exaggeration. 2.2. Text 1: „PM: I still have a lot to do“ In the first text analysed in this paper („PM: I still have a lot to do“, The Sun, 1.8.2003), statements made by one person (Tony Blair) are explicitly being presented as if a symbolic exchange with others took place. On the one hand, Tony Blair’s statements are construed as being opposed to Gordon Brown’s alleged hopes/dreams (torpedoed Gordon Brown’s dreams, crushed the Chancellor’s hopes); on the other hand, Tony Blair is shown to react to unnamed others’ statements (brushed aside calls to quit, has been stung by claims). Other expressions work more implicitly to give the text the appearance of a dialogue (insist, defence, admit) and may convey an impression of the „interactional conduct“ (Clayman 1990: 80) of Tony Blair. However, the text moves beyond the construal of Tony Blair’s statements as simply being part of a dialogue and reconstructs them as being part of an ARGUMENT. This is achieved strategically by various means. For instance, the text invokes linguistic expressions from the conceptual (structural) metaphor ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE (Ungerer / Schmid 1996: 123). 8 This metaphor consists of the mapping of the source model BATTLE onto the target model ARGUMENT. ARGUMENT thus inherits some of the cognitive structures (including the stages) of a BATTLE, which can be seen in various linguistic expressions frequently used to talk about language: Initial positions of the opponents They drew up their battle lines. I braced myself for the onslaught. Attack She attacked every weak point in my argument. He shot down all my arguments. Defence They defended their position ferociously She produced several illustrations to buttress her argument Retreat He withdrew his offensive remarks Counterattack I hit back at his criticism Victory/defeat/truce O.K., you win. He had to succumb to the force of her arguments. Let’s call it a truce. (after Ungerer / Schmid 1996: 124) 8 This is nothing other than Lakoff and Johnson’s ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 4), but Ungerer and Schmid’s label is more suitable for my purposes (e.g. the stages below seem more suitable for talk about BATTLES than for talk about WAR). The metaphor is also related to Ballmer and Brennenstuhl’s model of verbal struggle (Ballmer / Brennenstuhl 1980: 21). For other common metaphors concerning language see Reddy (1993) and Lenk (2002); for alternative metaphors for ARGUMENT see Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 97). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 11 This conceptual metaphor is strategically invoked in the news story by the reporting expressions used in the text. These are: torpedo, insist, brush aside, crush, say (2), quip, mount a defence, admit (2), claim (noun), go on, declare, insist (2). Only three instances can be regarded as neutral (go on, say); one indicates low reliability (claims), and three indicate positive and negative evaluation (quip, admit; see below). The majority, however, either indicate the speaker’s (here: Tony Blair) power (insist (2), declare) or, even more importantly, belong to the military domain and realise the ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE metaphor: 9 • torpedo (military meaning: ‚to attack or sink a ship with a torpedo or torpedoes‛) 10 • brush aside (military meaning: The enemy brushed aside our defences) • crush (military meaning: The rebellion was crushed by government forces) • mount a vigorous defence • has been stung (‚to hurt or wound sb with or as if with a sting‛) 11 . The conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE which is invoked in The Sun with the help of these reporting expressions establishes a particular construal of the reported event. However, tapping into conceptual metaphors is only one means of establishing such an event- construal. Other signs also contribute to the BATTLE construal. Thus, it is reinforced by the accompanying image of Tony Blair and its caption (Fighting talk … Blair yesterday), which provides a summary of the BATTLE construal. The image itself shows Tony Blair close-up, determined, and attentive. One might even notice a certain similarity to a military helicopter pilot in plate 1 (because of the headphones), though this was probably not intended. No matter how we interpret the picture, there is no semiotic contradiction between the BATTLE construal and the image (as would be the case if Tony Blair was pictured smiling or shaking someone’s hand). The ‚extreme close-up‛ also implies an intimate social relationship with the reader (Kress / van Leeuwen 1999: 386-390): 12 9 In fact, these expressions could also be regarded as realisations of the metaphor WORDS ARE WEAPONS, but this is a subcategory of ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE (Lenk 2002: 56) and the explanation of these expressions via the superordinate category ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE allows us to relate these linguistic expressions to the stages of a battle. 10 The example sentences and the paraphrases are all taken from the OALD. The emphasis is mine. 11 Although this expression does not belong to the military domain per se (but rather to the world of insects), it relates to the ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE metaphor in that it represents Tony Blair as ‚wounded‛ by remarks. 12 Kress / van Leeuwen (1999) introduce concepts into linguistics which have been used somewhat similarly in research on portraiture. metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 12 Plate 1: The Sun, 1.8.2003 The event-construal is also reinforced by typography, which stresses the defiant character of Tony Blair at the very beginning of the story and provides an apt introduction of the battle construal by introducing the readers to the theme of aggression/opposition: (3) PM: I still have a lot to do By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON Deputy Political Editor DEFIANT Tony Blair last night torpedoed Gordon Brown’s dreams by insisting he wants to stay in power for years to come. As we have seen above, battles (and arguments) are typically constructed out of several stages. Here not all are explicitly expressed: the linguistic expressions in the news story are restricted to the realisation of the stages of Attack and Defence. The central question, however – who wins the battle – is not explicitly stated (as it would be in a sentence such as Tony Blair’s opponents had to succumb to the force of his arguments). Nevertheless, the answer is implicitly supplied by the text: Firstly, Tony Blair is characterised as the more powerful opponent via the reporting expressions mentioned above and via the selection of the headline PM: I still have a lot to do. This headline gives an impression of Tony Blair’s power, suggesting a paraphrase like the following: ‚I, not the government, will do a lot for you, the people‛. In this headline Tony Blair is the government, it is he who pulls the strings, so to speak. The selected quotes also imply power and determination: metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 13 • he wants to stay in power for years to come • „There is a big job of work still to do and my appetite for doing it is undiminished“ • „There is an enormous amount still to do“ • he was right to have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein. Secondly, Tony Blair is also evaluated positively via propositional contents that would be regarded as positive by many readers because of their cultural assumptions: • He brushed aside calls to quit on the eve of making history [positive evaluation: making history is a good thing in this context] by becoming the Labour Prime Minister who has served the longest single period. [Becoming the Labour Prime Minister who has served the longest single period is positive evaluation, similar to the examples above and below] • Mr Blair, who on Saturday beats Clement Attlee’s 50-year record as leader of the longest- serving Labour administration [positive evaluation: beating records is a good thing in this context] again declared he was right to have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein. • The PM looked at ease [positive evaluation: suggests that his arguments are strong (also implies power) and that he is not nervous, aggressive, choleric, defensive etc] as he mounted a vigorous defence of his record on Iraq and the public services. • He even quipped (positive evaluation of speaker; Tony Blair is presented as intelligent and humorous; the scalar particle even in connection with the previous sentence suggests that he is very much at ease indeed (hence power is again implied: Tony Blair is so much in control of the situation that he can make jokes) his job was easier than the England cricket captain’s in the wake of Nasser Hussein’s resignation Thirdly, even the two instances of negative admit are weakened or subverted. Usually, admit is concerned with negative evaluation, implying in effect several things: it shows that a statement was produced reluctantly (Clayman 1990: 87), carries the implied assumption that some negative act has been committed (Hardt-Mautner 1995: 13) or suggests that the content of the reported proposition is negative. 13 However, if we look at the first example But he frankly admitted schools, hospitals and roads have not improved nearly enough under his leadership, the first assumption is actually explicitly denied by the context (he frankly admitted), and the second presupposition is weakened by the reported proposition itself: Although schools, hospitals and roads have not improved nearly enough, (1) they did improve, and (2) the process is not over yet. In the second example, He admitted his decision 13 It hence belongs to the category of „author’s behaviour interpretation“ verbs where the writer interprets the reported speaker’s attitude/purpose in uttering the reported proposition (Thompson / Yiyun 1991: 373). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 14 had sent public trust in him into freefall — but it was worth it, the third presupposition (p is negative) is weakened in that the reported proposition is not negative to the readers (the public) but to the speaker (Tony Blair) and in that it is, moreover, contrasted with a definite it was worth it. These examples are instances of a strategy I would like to call ‚neutralising the negative‛. Tony Blair is thus represented as the powerful, calm, intelligent, humorous, good leader, who has had difficulties because of his position (has been stung by claims that billions of taxpayers’ cash is being frittered away on pen-pushers, public trust has vanished) but who has put up with it in order to liberate the people in Iraq (it was worth it). Consequently, it is he who must win the battle of arguments established via the use of conceptual metaphor and other linguistic devices in this news story. 14 The analysis so far has pointed out two important functions of event-construals (and conceptual metaphors): evaluation (Tony Blair is evaluated positively) and what I would call dramatisation (the event is construed as a BATTLE). 15 Both may be used to attract particular readers to the newspaper. On another level, such event-construals are also important cognitive devices in providing overall coherence for the reader, providing him/her with cues on how to decode the story. 2.3 Text 2: „You are killing our firms“ Similar issues are present in the second text that was analysed („You are killing our firms“, The Sun, 2.9.2003), although this time it is not Tony Blair’s statements that are reported but rather the statements of industry leaders. Again, the reporting expressions that are employed in the story are interesting to look at: three instances are neutral (say (2), believe), one indicates low reliability (claim), one indicates intensity (stress), but the majority (six out of ten) signal opposition, conflict or battle (protest, threaten, turn on, complain, accuse, demand the showdown). This creates the impression that the businessmen and Tony Blair (and the unions) are engaged in a battle. This battle construal 14 This is also indicated by the lower reliability of claim (used for reporting Tony Blair’s opponents’ statements in: Mr Blair has been stung by claims that billions of taxpayers’ cash is being frittered away on pen-pushers), which entails the writer’s scepticism. 15 Little of this event-construal is in this case established by Tony Blair himself (i.e. by his remarks) and even the quotes have been selected by the newspaper (and it is not clear in how far they correspond to Tony Blair’s original remarks. Compare Fairclough (1988) on an analysis of how ‚original‛ discourse is represented in reported speech in newspapers). The majority of the construal is hence done by the writer(s). metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world 15 is reinforced by the captions (Showdown … Blair; Demands … Sir John), which summarise this event-construal, as well as by the selection of the quote of a so-called ‚industry insider‛: • Industry insiders last night stressed the influential group mean business. One said: „It is the first time they have ganged up on him and he ignores what they say at his peril.“ Here expressions such as gang up on him, at his peril evoke a world of aggression and opposition rather than of business relations. The accusatory headline (You are killing our firms) and the juxtaposition of the two images (plates 2 and 3) also contribute to this: plate 2: The Sun, 2.9.2003 plate 3: The Sun, 2.9.2003 Note that here it is one of the businessmen that is singled out (Sir John Bond) for the image, to give the impression of a ‚duel‛, a fight between men. The close-ups show two men with grim, determined faces (Tony Blair is even baring his teeth, a traditionally aggressive gesture), rather than two friendly people. As Kress / van Leeuwen point out, the facial expression of represented participants may determine the kind of relation that viewers develop to them (Kress / van Leeuwen 1999: 381). Imagine the different effect of a picture showing a group of businessmen in suits and ties, from some distance, with neutral or friendly facial expressions, juxtaposed with a picture of Tony Blair, seen from some distance, smiling and waving to the viewer. Again, there is certainly no semiotic contradiction between the images and the event-construal, no matter how the meaning of these images is interpreted. The BATTLE construal is also reinforced by an additional important conceptual metaphor: INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENTAL ACTIONS (TAXES/REFORMS) ARE PERSONS ENGAGED IN A BATTLE . 16 This is realised by one unsignalled and two signalled propositions (The headline (You are killing our firms) only involves the firms are persons metaphor):17 16 This personification is an extension of an ontological metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 34). 17 I am employing these terms roughly as Fairclough (1988) uses them, namely, to refer to the explicit marking of propositions as reported (via the use of reporting expressions or quotation marks etc: signalled) and to unmarked propositions (unsignalled). With unsignalled propositions it is normally only possible to hypothesise [...]...metaphorik.de 09/2005 – Bednarek, Construing the world • failed reforms are crippling industry (signalled) • their firms are being taxed to death (signalled) • And the crumbling road and rail network is handicapping industry (unsignalled) This metaphor hides the internal diversity and contradicting interests of industry and justifies the claim that there is a unifying business interest that must be pursued... Bednarek, Construing the world joint intelligence committee), Blair and Hatfield (the MoD’s personnel director), which are not mentioned at all in The Sun story The text in The New York Times (NYT), on the other hand („Widow of arms expert says he felt betrayed by bosses“; 2.9.2003) uses The Sun’s conceptualisation and focuses on the reported emotions rather than the inherent contradictions of the statements... calls to quit on the eve of making history by becoming the Labour Prime Minister who has served the longest single period And he crushed the Chancellor's hopes of moving into No10 by saying: "There is a big job of work still to do and my appetite for doing it is undiminished." He even quipped his job was easier than the England cricket captain's in the wake of Nasser Hussein's resignation The PM looked... about the reason for going to war have plunged the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair into the worst crisis of its six years in power Within hours of the discovery of the body, Mr Blair called for an independent inquiry led by Lord Hutton, a senior British judge, with the mission of finding whether the government's treatment of Dr Kelly contributed to his death The hearings, now beginning their... provide a conceptual- metaphoric representation of the world This function has been rather neglected in linguistic studies on metaphors and certainly seems to deserve further attention in systematic textual analyses 28 Other means of dramatisation include the use of intensifiers (which are also abundant in the above texts) as well as other strategies to evoke the reader’s interest and emotions (for the latter... governmental actions/industry: there is a metonymic relation between Tony Blair and the government as well as between the businessmen and industry This enforces the BATTLE event-construal (of which Attack is the only stage realised linguistically) The question of victory is not as clearly decided as in the above text, as there are contradicting evaluations: On the one hand, the businessmen are represented... (reporting political statements) takes option 1, whereas text 3 focuses on the emotional impact of the reported statements This tendency has been confirmed by a preliminary study of a bigger newspaper corpus comprising 40 news stories where the number of neutral reporting verbs in four different news stories in ten newspapers (The Sun, The Daily Star, The Express, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Daily... undergoing bruising questioning) • overwhelmed and bewildered 27 The NYT also mentions that the hearings … have broadened their focus to examine the whole government information campaign before the war and have suggested that the government exaggerated intelligence assessments of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons to justify military action But note the low degree of reliability inherent in suggest... as the victor from the battle – the outcome might in fact be a stalemate Again, the event-construal establishes the basis for evaluations, provides coherence, and, most importantly, dramatises the event In addition, the conceptual metaphors attributed to the businessmen convey a particular image of industry and government relations, which may influence popular folk knowledge 2.3 Text 3: „My husband... help the reader to create coherence In fact, there is a lot of interaction between (verbal and nonverbal) signs which co-establish such construals (headlines, as we have seen, provide encapsulations of the event-construal of the news story for the reader) However, conceptual metaphors seem to be particularly important for establishing construals of ‚newsworthy‛ events in news stories in that they provide . textualisation“. The paper takes up the notion of metaphors as creative stylistic devices in news stories (analysing stories in The Sun, The Guardian and The New. notion of metaphors as creative stylistic devices in news stories (analysing stories in The Sun, The Guardian and The New York Times, taken from the newspapers’